Switching to LED from HPS

I have been tempted to replace my 600W HPS due to heat/cost issues (and concerns of my electric meter spinning its skirt off) with the supposedly 600W equivalent Viparspectra LED which runs at 268W.

Costs about £168 to buy one in the UK.

Lucky Luke said:

Bull shit. Im in Australia and I can run HPS all year round without AC. You don't HAVE to use ac. Its a bloody weed and takes high temps well enough when using air movement. Air movement is the number two key to a grow right after H2o

I run HPS and CFL in winter to SAVE money on heating. That's right it saves me money in winter over LED.

Im not bagging LED, LED is bloody awesome and I use an LED light for propagation and in summer as a veg light but all of our environments are different from each other.

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And this is the problem, your told hps is too hot go buy led but then someone from somewhere hot runs the damn thing zero problems.

You put this to led growers and you get zero back in the way of an answer.

Next you question the physics and biology of how those in hotter climates run hps and they create an argument rather than concede that something in their maths and science dosent stack up.

To my knowledge 600watts of light is hot in any form, NASA and such agencies would love for you to produce a cooler light but thermodynamically this is impossible at present tech.

And i still think leds grow some great weed and yeilds just far from where they think they currently are

Stipulus said:

Thats bollocks...what he has listed is the amount of light energy output from the LED lights...not the draw, the draw will easily be half of a 600 HPS

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No. He's talking about using 2 of them.

And I just googled - the Apollo 8 only uses 270ish watts. These fucking shitty LED companies and their bullshit claims. I'm glad these things are becoming dinosaurs.

Silvio Dante said:

I have been tempted to replace my 600W HPS due to heat/cost issues (and concerns of my electric meter spinning its skirt off) with the supposedly 600W equivalent Viparspectra LED which runs at 268W.

Costs about £168 to buy one in the UK.

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I give up.

The 600 watt equivalent Vipar will actually replace a 1000 watt light. I would suggest purchasing 2 of them.

Johnny Lawrence said:

I give up.

The 600 watt equivalent Vipar will actually replace a 1000 watt light. I would suggest purchasing 2 of them.

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Ya I'm about to snap myself an stop trying to help people by giving them actual good advice and instead just agreeing with them and telling them what they want to hear.

"Yea buddy, that led will only use maybe 50 watts an easily outyield a DE 1000 hps" "leds dont need cooling, and they grow 4 grams per watt!!!" "Hps is outdated and doesn't even work"

Johnny Lawrence said:

I give up.

The 600 watt equivalent Vipar will actually replace a 1000 watt light. I would suggest purchasing 2 of them.

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Interesting - I have only gone on the marketing information of the Vipar - what has you conclude that the 268W Viparspectra is a good as a 1000w HPS?

Everything I have seen suggests they are very decent lamps, I just have no first-hand experience of LED growing as of yet.

Kingrow1 said:

Mechanical movement cost a plant energy to become thicker, this dosent make for bigger yeilds over a non mechanical stressed plant as per all studies in the area.

Another myth perpetuated here, some pros will shoot you down on this point and others have written threads to support the science and stop newbies thinking making your plant sway equals bigger yeilds.

Im sorry to be so accurate, i learnt a lot through frustration here but i welcome corrections if it is cited and tested but not the old info thats stagnated here over the yeqrs.

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How bout a link to those study's? And don't link a study about some lettuce or some crap like that. Maybe cite your own opinion before you ask others to.

Silvio Dante said:

Interesting - I have only gone on the marketing information of the Vipar - what has you conclude that the 268W Viparspectra is a good as a 1000w HPS?

Everything I have seen suggests they are very decent lamps, I just have no first-hand experience of LED growing as of yet.

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It's not. I was being facetious.

A 268 watt Vipar is equivalent to a 268 watt hid - roughly. You would need 2 of them to replace your 600, but then what would be the point?

Johnny Lawrence said:

It's not. I was being facetious.

A 268 watt Vipar is equivalent to a 268 watt hid - roughly. You would need 2 of them to replace your 600, but then what would be the point?

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Interesting again - the video comparison I saw had 600W HPS lamps alongside 268W LEDs in a commercial set up in the USA, and there was no noticeable difference. The anti-luddite in me wants to say that modern LEDs are of sufficent quality to be suitable replacements for HPS lamps.

I am not the most experienced grower though and as I say, no first hand experience of LED growing.

I would like to know your rationale for concluding that a 268W LED is the equivalent to a 268W HPS? Whilst I accept LED's have undeniably less light spread overall, ergo a more concentrated area which is perhaps more suited to sativa over indica strains, I believe the actual light output in terms of lumens is equivalent. Since the electricity input is by and large irrelevant, and it is all about the efficiency of the bulbs output, what evidence do you have that a 268W LED is not as powerful as a 600W HPS? A lot of those 600 watts is lost to heat output, which is entirely wasted energy?

Silvio Dante said:

Interesting again - the video comparison I saw had 600W HPS lamps alongside 268W LEDs in a commercial set up in the USA, and there was no noticeable difference. The anti-luddite in me wants to say that modern LEDs are of sufficent quality to be suitable replacements for HPS lamps.

I am not the most experienced grower though and as I say, no first hand experience of LED growing.

I would like to know your rationale for concluding that a 268W LED is the equivalent to a 268W HPS? Whilst I accept LED's have undeniably less light spread overall, ergo a more concentrated area which is perhaps more suited to sativa over indica strains, I believe the actual light output in terms of lumens is equivalent. Since the electricity input is by and large irrelevant, and it is all about the efficiency of the bulbs output, what evidence do you have that a 268W LED is not as powerful as a 600W HPS? A lot of those 600 watts is lost to heat output, which is entirely wasted energy?

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Dude you have no clue what your talking about buy a blurple led use it. It should take about a month for you to realize how wrong you are a couple weeks to get over the depression of throwing your money in the garbage after all that come back an let us know how it went.

Silvio Dante said:

Interesting again - the video comparison I saw had 600W HPS lamps alongside 268W LEDs in a commercial set up in the USA

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Was it their video?

The rest of your post was littered with incorrect info. High quality LEDs(especially Samsung diode based lights) have better spread, as your have multiple point sources. And even with the best LEDs on the market, you're not going to replace an hid fixture with an LED that's half the wattage. The tech isn't there yet.

LEDs put out considerable heat too, but do so in a different way. Most of the heat goes up out of the top of the light.

I run an SE 600 in a 4x4 with no real heat problems. And that's only running an 8 inch fan pulling air off the hood, a 6 inch pulling air out, and a 6 inch in - no AC.

Silvio Dante said:

Interesting again - the video comparison I saw had 600W HPS lamps alongside 268W LEDs in a commercial set up in the USA, and there was no noticeable difference. The anti-luddite in me wants to say that modern LEDs are of sufficent quality to be suitable replacements for HPS lamps.

I am not the most experienced grower though and as I say, no first hand experience of LED growing.

I would like to know your rationale for concluding that a 268W LED is the equivalent to a 268W HPS? Whilst I accept LED's have undeniably less light spread overall, ergo a more concentrated area which is perhaps more suited to sativa over indica strains, I believe the actual light output in terms of lumens is equivalent. Since the electricity input is by and large irrelevant, and it is all about the efficiency of the bulbs output, what evidence do you have that a 268W LED is not as powerful as a 600W HPS? A lot of those 600 watts is lost to heat output, which is entirely wasted energy?

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Was the video comparison from the manufacturer of the LED light? If it was you should consider it to be nothing more than marketing to get people to buy their lights.

Lucky Luke said:

Bull shit. Im in Australia and I can run HPS all year round without AC. You don't HAVE to use ac. Its a bloody weed and takes high temps well enough when using air movement. Air movement is the number two key to a grow right after H2o

I run HPS and CFL in winter to SAVE money on heating. That's right it saves me money in winter over LED.

Im not bagging LED, LED is bloody awesome and I use an LED light for propagation and in summer as a veg light but all of our environments are different from each other.

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Calm down, nobody said you can't grow in high or low temps, but quality and yield will begin to suffer.

You can save money on heating by using auto thermo climate control, this saves W and also allows you to continue using a better light tech all year round.

Yes environments are different, certain techs might make more sense if your thermo control is unable to regulate temps. Aside from that the setup has a bottle neck of some sort.

Kingrow1 said:

I just think that at present a watt of power produces the same yeild regardless of light type. 100watts of led is easily rivaled by 100watts of t5's, 600watts of hps is easily rivaled by 600watts of t5's.

One watt per gram four weeks veg on a quick indica still seems about right for most lights give or take

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A W is a W but how that W is applied to the canopy strays massively.

If everybody was using 600hps in a vert cage then I doubt cob and QB would have got as much traction as it has right now. The amount of canopy coverage at that point compared to cobs more uniformed scrog style would have been less of a gap W for W for most grower setups. The quality gap would have been lessened too due to scrog style hps growers not hot spot frying leaves to greedily attain light coverage/intensity on outer canopy's. The other option was backing lights off to retain quality but reducing yield, a happy medium within a threshold being the balancing act.

Not everybody can use a vert cage so something along the lines of a loose scrog or stadium style grow is most often used. In scrog, I would never use hps again.. in stadium I would consider it, but only if money was too short to afford a cob/cmh mix, or qb/cmh.

I'm not in the business of lying to myself and I've only ever seen increased results in every aspect. Same yield with more qulity, same yield with less W used, more yield and quality etc.. obviously with a back step here and there, or what is human.

growingforfun said:

From the posts of yours I've found it looks like your in about a 3x3 space? Am I wrong?

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You're wrong yet if you were not why would that matter?. You seem intent on making this personal, degrading my skill while pointing out yours. Just an observation, if you were not an ignorant person (so I perceive) you'd know a dialed in 3x3 need only upscale to become a decent 3x6, 3x9 and to the moon. In other words, if you fail to dial in one dimension you'll fail with all.

Johnny Lawrence said:

Was it their video?

The rest of your post was littered with incorrect info. High quality LEDs(especially Samsung diode based lights) have better spread, as your have multiple point sources. And even with the best LEDs on the market, you're not going to replace an hid fixture with an LED that's half the wattage. The tech isn't there yet.

LEDs put out considerable heat too, but do so in a different way. Most of the heat goes up out of the top of the light.

I run an SE 600 in a 4x4 with no real heat problems. And that's only running an 8 inch fan pulling air off the hood, a 6 inch pulling air out, and a 6 inch in - no AC.

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Jesus thats alot of fans 1200w of QB in a 4x8 and I only use 1 6" exhaust fan

Flowki said:

You're wrong yet if you were not why would that matter?. You seem intent on making this personal, degrading my skill while pointing out yours. Just an observation, if you were not an ignorant person (so I perceive) you'd know a dialed in 3x3 need only upscale to become a decent 3x6, 3x9 and to the moon. In other words, if you fail to dial in one dimension you'll fail with all.

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You keep speaking nonsence about lighting any everything ive seen from you points to you never learning how to use hid lighting properly. You think scrogs waste light, and your posts are centered around micro grows... if you have ever done a full room like a 10x10 id like to hear it. Its not that im trying to make it personal, its that what your saying doesnt seem like you have experiance. Seems like you read a lot online, so you think your a professor. News flash, we have all read a lot online... what are you doing? You speak a lot of negative about hps and i just dont think you know how to use them, amd your space is so small led works better for YOU.

xtsho said:

Was the video comparison from the manufacturer of the LED light? If it was you should consider it to be nothing more than marketing to get people to buy their lights.

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No it was actually a colorado based cannabis grower who seemed to have no connection to any particular light manufacturer as far as I could tell. It was a very large commercial set up.

Ryante55 said:

Dude you have no clue what your talking about buy a blurple led use it. It should take about a month for you to realize how wrong you are a couple weeks to get over the depression of throwing your money in the garbage after all that come back an let us know how it went.

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Who pissed in your cornflakes?

I am just discussing something from an objective point of view, with no particular viewpoint either way, just curious from a scientific point of view. I am not on commission for LED lamps so I'd thank you not to spread your bile across the forums.

If you can't discuss something in a reasonable fashion without such vitriol, perhaps a forum is not for you? There is no need to get so pissy?

Did an LED lamp clonk you on the head in a former life?

Ryante55 said:

Jesus thats alot of fans 1200w of QB in a 4x8 and I only use 1 6" exhaust fan

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A south facing garage in SoCal. Gets hot af at times. I don't run AC or dehumidifiers, so i like to move a lot of air. I never run into powdery mildew issues either. A long time ago, I would sometimes get PM on some of my biggest colas - they were just too dense. Increased air flow and I don't have that issue any longer.

I run silencers and duct insulation on everything, so it's nice and quiet down there.